Primates developed CWD after consuming CWD infected cervid meat

[SFC B]

Interesting but I ask if this is true why have no hunters in Wyoming contracted variant CJD ?
I have no doubt that at some point I have consumed meat from positive animals , as have many of the fellow hunters I know in our area, yet no known cases of variant CJD.
That soldier , did he die of scrapies or variant CJD. Scrapies is a known TSE and has been known to affect humans for years.

I do agree, do not eat the body parts that can be affected or carry the prion.

It was CJD. The onset and his death were quick and wholly disturbing.

 

[TWT]

Any prion desease can have a quick onset after exposure or take years to incubate before showing signs. I'm a large animal veterinarian in Oklahoma. You all are right about there being a serious lack of knowledge about the zoonotic capabilities of these diseases. They are very well understood within their respective species, scrapie in sheep, BSE in cattle, CWD in cervids, etc. A couple of things we do know
however are that repeated exposure, consumption of infected neural tissue, increases the chances of transmission or speed the onset of disease, you can inject prions from one mammal into the CSF fluid of any other mammal and cause disease.That does not prove transmission is possible through consumption of infected tissue, but it does prove that prions are zoonotic. There is a theory that Parkinson's may be related to CJD. I would recommend to never eat brain or spinal chord from anything and take care to not introduce brain, spinal chord, or CSF fluid into your meat during processing.

 

[shootbrownelk]

Hopefully someone who is truly knowledgeable on this topic can correct me if I'm wrong: Based on my rudimentary understanding of CWD, I suspect those of us who live in the Intermountain West have already been consuming prions. I don't believe there is a good way to sterilize knives and grinders. As I understand it, hot water and detergent won't do it. In fact, I believe the heat needs to be extreme, which is why the cooking issue is irrelevant. Once the prions are on your knives and grinder I'm not sure you can get them all off - read the reports of how researchers tried to sterilize the ground-zero facility and the animals still got infected; it's spooky. So, if you get your animals cut up at a processor who handles deer and elk from Wyoming or Colorado, then I suspect his equipment has prions on it from someone's else's animal. I cut up and grind my own elk and deer and I get the animal tested it if comes from an area remotely close to a known hot zone. All that said, I find it surprising that the new research was apparently able to so readily infect a primate when tens of thousands of people (and perhaps many more) have been eating CWD contaminated deer and elk over the past 40 years without any apparent issue.

There aren't many areas in Wyoming that aren't CWD infected, and it's getting more and more widespread every year.

 

[Millsworks]

I certainly would not go as far as to say humans could not contract CWD but living, hunting, and working with deer in my home state of West Virginia, where CWD is apparently very prevalent, it must be pretty tuff to get.

Deer harvested are regularly tested and the test results aren't given to the hunter that took the deer. These deer ,infected or not, then are consumed by the hunter and their families with no knowledge of a single case of a person contracting it.
After years of this going on in supposedly CWD ground zero areas in the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia where thousands of deer are taken each year, you would think someone would have gotten it or at least contracted a variation of the disease.

Maybe us West Virginia people are just a little more imune than the rest of the country to little things like diseases.

 

[walking buffalo]

Interesting but I ask if this is true why have no hunters in Wyoming contracted variant CJD ?
I have no doubt that at some point I have consumed meat from positive animals , as have many of the fellow hunters I know in our area, yet no known cases of variant CJD.
That soldier , did he die of scrapies or variant CJD. Scrapies is a known TSE and has been known to affect humans for years.

I do agree, do not eat the body parts that can be affected or carry the prion.

I quoted wytex, but noted that several people here are working with the old belief that meat from a cwd positive animal is considered to be a low risk material.

It is NOT. The meat is now considered to be as potentially dangerous as any other part of the animal.

The ONLY way to prevent consuming CWD is to eat animals that do NOT have the disease.

If you hunt in a known CWD area, have your animal tested before consuming it!


Potential CWD transfer to humans by consuming wild meat is unfortunately only the blunt tip of the iceberg now.

CWD has now been shown to be up-taken by plants from the soil, being found in all parts of the plant including the seeds.

Corn, wheat, legumes, hay, can all become CWD positive.

What happens when international agencies ban the importation of these crops from CWD areas?



There are several research projects into possible historical and future human deaths from CWD.
This will take more time to develop a clearer picture of whether CWD is already killing people.


If several or all of the conceived issues relating to CWD come to being correct, this disease will dramatically change wildlife management and hunting as we know it.


This link has some additional info on current CWD concerns.
http://apwildlife.org/publications/

Katqanna, contact Darrel Rowledge from the Alliance for Public Wildlife if you would like help in sources the information.

 

[utahminer]

There is a theory that Parkinson's may be related to CJD. I would recommend to never eat brain or spinal chord from anything and take care to not introduce brain, spinal chord, or CSF fluid into your meat during processing.

My wife and I were just talking about this last night. Her family has cabin property in eastern Wyoming where CWD is pretty bad. Both her grandfather, uncle and now my father in-law have all been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

On a side note, if you can not "clean" the prions off of knives or butchering equipment, think about all the butchers that could have "tainted" equipment and wouldn't the practice removing a trophy (head or skull cap) taint your hunting knife? Maybe I need to rethink the need to go with disposable blade knife.

Also, I read the same article first quoted in this thread off of Facebook last week. After reading the article I decided to read the comments to see if I could learn anything. It was scary to read some people's opinions. The number of people that think CWD is a conspiracy to keep people from hunting and spending time in the woods is amazing.

 

[katqanna]

Katqanna, contact Darrel Rowledge from the Alliance for Public Wildlife if you would like help in sources the information.

Walking Buffalo, thanks. As soon as I get the worst of this move taken care of in the next 2 weeks, then I will take a look at the site and contact Rowledge.

 

[walking buffalo]

Walking Buffalo, thanks. As soon as I get the worst of this move taken care of in the next 2 weeks, then I will take a look at the site and contact Rowledge.

I'll pm his email. Darrel is Canada's leading CWD Policy advocate. He will outtalk you.

Following is the first summary of this new finding to be released.

Chronic Wasting Disease: CFIA Research Summary Embargoed until May 23, 2017
(OCR of a scanned original)

Research Findings

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system of cervids including deer, elk, moose, and reindeer that is caused by abnormal proteins called prions. It is known as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). Other TSEs include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.

A limited number of experimental studies have demonstrated that non-human primates, specifically squirrel monkeys, are susceptible to CWD prions. An ongoing research study has now shown that CWD can also be transmitted to macaques, which are genetically closer to humans.

The study led by Dr. Stefanie Czub, a scientist at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), and funded by the Alberta Prion Research institute has demonstrated that by orally administering material under experimental conditions from cervids (deer and elk) naturally infected with CWD, the disease can be transmitted to macaques.

in this project, which began in 2009, 18 macaques were exposed to CWD in a variety of ways: by injecting into the brain, through contact with skin, oral administration, and intravenously (into the bloodstream through veins).

So far, results are available from 5 animals. At this point, two animals that were exposed to CWD by direct introduction into the brain, one that was administered infected brain material by oral administration and two that were given infected muscle by oral administration have become infected with CWD. The study is ongoing and testing continues in the remaining animals. The early results will be presented at PRlON 2017, the annual international conference on prion diseases, in Edinburgh, Scotland, May 23 to 26, 2017.

Potential impacts of the new finding

Since 2003 Canada has a policy that recommends that animals and materials known to be infected with prions be removed from the food chain and from health products. Although no direct evidence of CWD prion transmission to humans has ever been recorded, the policy advocates a precautionary approach to managing CWD and potential human exposure to prions. These initial findings do not change Health Canada’s Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) position on food and health products. A precautionary approach is still recommended to manage the potential risks of exposure to prions through food and health products. Measures are in place at federal, provincial and territorial levels to reduce human exposure to products potentially contaminated by CWD by preventing known infected animals from entering the marketplace.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

My wife and I were just talking about this last night. Her family has cabin property in eastern Wyoming where CWD is pretty bad. Both her grandfather, uncle and now my father in-law have all been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

On a side note, if you can not "clean" the prions off of knives or butchering equipment, think about all the butchers that could have "tainted" equipment and wouldn't the practice removing a trophy (head or skull cap) taint your hunting knife? Maybe I need to rethink the need to go with disposable blade knife.

Also, I read the same article first quoted in this thread off of Facebook last week. After reading the article I decided to read the comments to see if I could learn anything. It was scary to read some people's opinions. The number of people that think CWD is a conspiracy to keep people from hunting and spending time in the woods is amazing.

Yea that is fairly prevalent in my state. We had a group of organizations come together to form recommendations for CWD management. Basically it was pointless because our legislature and governor have basically ignored these recommendations. Anyways, the guy who heads Whitetails of Wisconsin, a group that represents game farms, stated that CWD has not killed one single deer in Wisconsin. Talk about a scary lack of knowledge

 

[TWT]

In recent years we have started genetic testing domestic sheep for scrapie susceptibility. Domestic sheep are being bred for resistance to scrapie. It is likely that there is a similar genetic susceptibility/resistance in other species as well, cattle, deer, humans, etc. This could be part of the reason CJD may or may not show up in CWD areas. There are different "strains" of the disease in different areas and I believe that it is highly likely that we share the same genetic resistance or susceptibility to prion diseases.